Rent Boy

by James Anthony Ford

  About day three in the ‘institution’ and I notice that the other patients are sort of very distant from me. Every morning when they saw me they would say “Good morning James’. But today, everyone was ignoring me. Then I enter the dining room and there were a group of patients huddled around a table chatting and once I entered the room they all sort of quickly got back in their seats sitting up straight and immediately stopped talking. It was evident that they were gossiping about me. Here we go again I thought. I just didn’t understand that everywhere I go I seem to cause controversy. Why? Just because I would not tell more about myself to the others. They all seemed to think that I had something to hide and it was not good. That was not the case. I was in the hospital for the same other bloody reasons as they were all there. I did just not want to be too social.

  On a daily basis there were a variety of classes you can take voluntarily such as art classes, yoga, and relaxation and then there were the discussion classes. These classes were one where we had to be quite interactive and open up about certain issues. There were classes such as ‘Managing anxiety’, and ‘Managing depression’ and so on. I really enjoyed these classes and this was where I was usually the most talkative one. Now if the other patients wanted to know more about my background then they should have been in those bloody classes! That’s where I was open and honest about my own emotions. I had to. I felt the need to say just what was on my mind without having to talk to myself like I did at home all the time. But as I was so talkative in these classes and not so social on the outside of these classes, I was dismissed as an outcast. Now that was strange, almost a bit of a contradiction as we were all suffering mental issues anyway. But it’s true. They all thought I was weird, in fact, one girl who was a bit of an extrovert said to me “You’re a bit weird you know?” I just looked at her and laughed as if I said ‘as if I could give a shit!’ The group she was sitting with in the courtyard just went silent as if I had dropped a bombshell. I was so sick of being judged all the time. Why should I have to justify myself to everyone all the time? Then I couldn’t believe it, she had the nerve to ask me “Are you gay or straight?” My response was “None of yer fuckin’ business!” Then I stood up and walked out of the courtyard. Because I have super-sonic hearing, and I do, well I mean, I have very good hearing. I actually heard one of the male patients say “Well, I think someone had just flew over the cuckoo’s nest” as I walked out the courtyard. I didn’t care. So they think I am crazier than they are? Big Shit! I didn’t care about anything anymore and I was so sick of having to prove myself to everyone all the time. I just wanted the world to leave me alone, at least just for a little while. The rest of you can fuck off!!!!!

  To top things off I was assigned to a sarcastic fat piece of shit, sorry, ‘psychiatrist’ that was so smarmy and sly and looked at me like I was some sort of outcast. He really did make me feel worse about myself. I wanted to get away from him and wanted to go back to my usual psychiatrist. At least HE does not make me feel bad about myself.

  After about a week I have had enough. I wanted to go home. I guess the good part about being in a hospital of this nature gives you time to think and it I like those classes that they had. Apart from that, I really think that being in there just makes you think too much about your own mental problems. I didn’t want that. I was so sick of going through my background and history to every bloody doctor and nurse there over and over again. I really just wanted to be alone and I think this is how I am only going to thicken my skin so to speak. So I told my assigned psychiatrist at the hospital that I wanted to discharge myself. He was a bit reluctant at first but I explained that I really needed some ‘me’ time. I needed to be alone and sort things out for myself. That is what I really wanted and that is that. So I left the next day and went home.

  I actually felt a sense of relief when I arrived home. It was not that I did not enjoy my time in a psychiatric hospital, it was just that it was too sterile for me and just made me feel like a mental patient. Even though it would not be fair to say that, but I did feel like one of those characters in ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’.

  At the end of the day I said to myself:

  “Jay, snap out of it!....you don’t need a psychiatric hospital!.....you just need a life!.....”

  Then it all started to make sense.

  I mentioned many times in this story I have said that I am embarrassed about admitting I have depression. It is after all, still a very misunderstood illness. Many people think it is just a selfish disease. Friends, who are now non-friends, when I had told them that I have depression they would say ‘Oh James, just snap out of it and stop feeling sorry for yourself’. But snap out of what? You can’t just snap out of depression. It just does not work that way. Many people also think that depression is a cry for attention and that it is just self-indulgence. This is all bogus.

  Depression is an illness and a serious one and I think the community needs more education about it. Depression still is a bit of a taboo subject to some people which is wrong as it needs to be talked about and then people would be more supportive to those who need help. I remember a time, I think it would have been about a few months ago, that I was feeling pretty low and that I called a depression help line. This was the first time I had called one of these help lines as I was not a big fan of those things. I mean, what can someone on the end of the phone line do? Yeah, save your world? But I called it. Apart from the fact that I felt suicidal at the time the woman I spoke to seemed more interested in asking my age, my name, my address, my phone number, my email address, my employer and my jock size, no just kidding not my jock size but I would be surprised if she did ask me that! She was doing most of the talking by asking bloody question after question, it was stupid. By the time she had finished with her twenty questions she finally said “Okay, so what is your problem?” I explained in quite frank terms that I was feeling very sad and so on. I got the impression that she was kind of bored with people ringing her up telling their sob stories. I don’t blame her, but after all, that is her job. She didn’t really express much empathy at all. It was such a waste of time and just made me feel worse so I hung up.

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  Another day, another income protection dollar, so to speak. It had been about a couple of weeks since I discharged myself from the psychiatric hospital. I was not getting any better. I had actually put on a little weight. I think that was because I had temporarily stopped going to the gym. I was getting daily exercise as I would actually do about 20 to 30 minutes of vigorous walking. I did try and eat regular and healthier meals. I actually was referred to a nutritionist and she was a really good inspiration. She really got me motivated into nutrition again and I stopped eating those horrible microwave meals and started making my own nutritious casserole based dishes. I also really started getting back into my fresh juices again. Previously I was a bit of a juice freak with drinking litres of fresh juice every day. Now I started to squeeze my own juice with fresh oranges, carrots, cucumber, celery, apples and my favourite watermelon. So on a physical health level I was doing okay. But for some reason my mental health was on the decline and I can’t explain why. I think the longer I was away from the norm of ‘nine to five’ daily routines the more depressed and anxious I got. I started getting panic attacks about three times a day. For no reason. I was also getting obsessive compulsive with checking locks and checking the timing on my alarm clocks and washing my hands all the time. It was like my mind was experiencing a whole cocktail of every mental illness known to man and it was taking its toll on me.

  I guess the problem for me was apart from the fact that I had to see some sort of doctor almost every day of the working week; I really had nothing else to do. But the fact is that I didn’t want to anything and I don’t think I could actually handle doing anything. I couldn’t even try and relax and read a book for longer than ten or so minutes before I start getting agitated and I get myself al
l worked up again. I would all of a sudden get images of my stepfather and I would think about my HIV and it would just round and round in my head. I just felt hopeless and useless. I had no reason for living. I just existed. I was not doing anything. I was not contributing to society. I believed that society has excluded me. I felt like a freak. And I would dwell on all these negative thoughts for hours and hours until I would only start to cry again. I was pathetic. But I knew it had to come to an end. This pain. I hated it. All I wanted was to be happy again. That’s all. That’s all I wanted.

  I had been absent from work now by this stage for about a year now. But I was not getting better. I felt just hopeless and worthless. I was even embarrassed to be seen in public as if someone was looking at me I would think they were looking at my HIV. I was paranoid and conscious about it. Having HIV made me feel dirty. I felt disgusted with myself as prior to my diagnosis I saw people with HIV as dirty people. Now I was one of them. But I also thought I was immortal. God was I so wrong. That is why I believe god had punished me with this disease to make me realise the life of sin I have lived. I agree with him though, I do deserve to be punished. But not with HIV. The reality is that living with HIV is not really as complicated as some people think. No it is not instantly AIDS which a lot of narrow minded people think. It is very manageable. But that was just it. The fact that you had to be so much more conscious about your own health that it would be impossible to have a day not thinking about the disease that you have. I was also terrified to touch anyone. That is why it had months since I last had sex, and you know what? I really don’t care about sex right at this moment. It was like I was completely over it with a capital ‘O’. I will explain what I mean with an analogy. If you eat baked beans for dinner every single night for five or ten years straight, eventually you will get sick of eating baked beans and never want to look at another tin of them ever again. This was case with me and sex at this stage in my life. I have had so many casual partners and so much sex in the past that quite frankly I am really over it. I just don’t care about it. I have no sex drive left. It has gone but I have inklings that this is only temporary for some reason as this is not normal for me. After all, I used to be addicted to sex. Not anymore. I don’t even look at another guy down the street anymore. I am just not interested. In fact I just don’t really care about much at all at the moment. I have nothing in my life to keep me motivated but I don’t really know how to get out of this tangled mental maze that I am stuck in. But still, I would still keep in contact with mum and tell her I’m fine but I thought that this time I would open up to Will about the seriousness about my depression. I needed to and I trusted him. He was one of the only ones that I could trust and I craved for his understanding and words of encouragement. The only problem was that he was so far away yet every time he emailed me it was like he was there having a conversation with me. Only Will could have that effect on me. But after I confessed my struggle with everyday life he became concerned. I could actually feel his sorrow and empathy for me. It’s hard to explain but I could almost feel him touching me with some psychic tenderness. But Will being Will, he always made funny ‘cracks’ and jokes in his email to make up for the sadness he was really feeling for me. I could feel that he was worried about me. I think his greatest fear was me committing suicide. He never mentioned the word- ‘suicide’. But I could sense that he bitterly worried about me. He always said to me in his emails that he only wished he could be there with me. I wished that also but he was in London for his career. It was beyond anyone’s control and I will not become a burden on him just because I am feeling sorry for myself.

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  Along came the Melbourne Winter of 2009. It was bitterly cold yet we were actually having a drought. We did not get much rain it was just dark depressing skies and bitterly cold winds. It did not help my depression at all. In fact, every morning now became unbearable with pain, sadness and complete darkness. I had sunk as deep in depression as anyone could go. I would not go outside, not even if I needed groceries as I was terrified of the cold. I still am, I hate winter and I hate the cold weather. I have always been that way. But this winter took the take and fed my depression even deeper. There was no way out for me and I tried so very hard to tell myself ‘just be happy’. I would tell it to myself out aloud once I awoke. But it was the same every morning. I would always wake up at around 8 am, head straight for the couch in the lounge room and sit. I would just sit there in silence. I had to. My body awoke to some sort of intense agonising pain that I could not move. I was totally paralysed. The thing was I have tried to explain the extent of my daily pain to my doctors but they just never seemed to get it. Their response was always ‘Oh, that pain is just a symptom of your depression’. Bullshit. There was more to it than that. With the withdrawal of pain killers and Valium, the side effects of my anti-depressants combined with my lack of will to live and also dwelling on my abusive past. It’s no wonder why I felt like crap. But every morning I would just sit there in silence for about an hour until I got my head around the fact that I have go through living another day. But I just didn’t know how I was going to do it. I was also so alone. So very, very lonely and I was living in such a dark world that I just was not coping with even the simplest of tasks. But I really had nothing to do. This was only because I did not want to do anything. I did not care about anything. I didn’t even care how I looked anymore. But now it got to the point that I could even look at myself in the mirror. I was a disgusting sight. I felt ugly. I had developed such a superficial attitude that if you don’t have any attractiveness than it’s not worth living. That’s how shallow I got. I was so used to getting a lot of attention during my twenties and having looks and a hot body that now it had all just dissolved away. Where did I go? There were so many times, especially during the time I was doing escort work that I would have loads of rich men offering to be my ‘sugar daddy’ and would offer me money and to live in their multi- million dollar apartment on the Sunshine coast. I had these offers many times and each time I rejected it. I could have had an easy life by now. But as usual, another day, another opportunity lost. But now I am all on my own and have to deal with the fact that my youth and vigour for a life with power and control is over. I have just hit the age where your ‘hotness’ starts to diminish. This is the age of thirty five and I hated it. I loved the days of walking into a room and basically could get any guy I wanted. Quite often a walk to the shops to buy a carton of milk many times ended up being a cruisy type of incident where I would get ‘cruised’ by a hot looking guy and had sex in the park amongst trees or something. Now I walk down the street and.......nothing. I don’t even get a second glance. The funny thing is though and this is the honest truth, I don’t really look 35. Many people I meet for the first time, like if I go into a cafe or something and the girl behind the counter “Oh do you mind if I ask how old you are?’” just as she was just bringing it up in conversation. I would say 35 but quite often people say I look more like 27 or so. I don’t look my age. Though wrinkles are starting to gradually show. My once perfect eyes are now developing crow’s feet and slight darkness against the inner eye. Plus I have a grey hair or two. They say that you should grow old gracefully. The problem is that I am so used to getting attention and being admired by other hot guys that I am not ready for this sort of societal rejection. The reality is that everyone will go through it. Every ‘once hot’ guy will go through the same getting old thing. It sucks. But I am at a point in this stage in my life where I see turning the age of 35 as over. I don’t believe there is a life for me beyond that age.

  There was one particular event which was a kind of Déjà-vu for me. About 5 or so years ago I was walking down the street that led to the cafe that is just down the rod from where I live. I was looking quite pumped up and muscular and was wearing a tight sort of t-shirt and I walked past a building where a hot landscaper was doing the gardening for this block of flats. W
hen he saw me he literally turned his lawn mower off, gave me a sexy look and said “Mmm your hot....” and I just smiled at him back. It was just a bit of flirting fun, nothing special. But the same thing happened 5 years later. I am 35 now, and I was walking past that same block of flats and I couldn’t believe it when I saw that same guy from that time. He took one look at me and just looked away as if to say ‘nope, not interested’ kind of thing. So that confirmed it. I was no longer hot. It was gone. I had to face that my sexuality has disappeared but the only way I knew how to get it back was to get back to the gym. And I will, but I am just not ready yet. Once I get my body back I will okay but until then I am a nothing. But I don’t want to contradict myself or anything but I am really not interested in cruising for guys anymore anyway. I was over it totally. I am over sex. I have had my fill and I just don’t care about it anymore. So what’s the point in going back to the gym anyway? I really don’t want to attract anyone. So why bother? But at the same time I did not want to be lonely anymore either. I just don’t know what I wanted out of life anymore. I really felt that at this time in my life, it’s over. It would be useless to try. I didn’t want to be considered as ‘mutton dressed as lamb’. So I have past the hump age. I’m getting older, losing my looks, not getting any more attention, have nothing to do all day except feel sorry for myself all day, and at the same time I was in a lot of physical pain. So who would really miss me when I was gone? I’m going to have to end it. And I will tonight. From the words of the late greatest pop artist of the modern era, Andy Warhol, This will be my fifteen minutes of fame.......................stay tuned.